


Room

by yeaka



Category: Travelers (TV)
Genre: Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 11:47:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20834942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeaka/pseuds/yeaka
Summary: Marcy upgrades Poppy.





	Room

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Travelers or any of its contents, and I’m not making any money off this.

Philip looks up more from the sudden sunbeam then the sound of the garage door opening. His fingers pause across the keyboard, the red-orange traveler screen suddenly flashing back to his normal desktop. The door creaks wider, and Marcy backs in.

It’s obvious she’s carrying something, so he stands up in case he’ll have to go over and help. But Marcy manages on her own, turning around and marching confidently across the battered concrete floor. She’s wearing a pretty purple sundress with a silver necklace, and the sunlight backlights her beautifully, but Phillip’s eyes fall straight to the object in her hands—an enormous glass tank that should take at least two, if not three, twenty-first century humans to carry. Technically, Marcy has the muscles of a twenty-first century woman, but she’s evidently had enough combat training to make her over confident. Philip walks over, but by the time he makes it to the first table, she’s already hiked the aquarium up onto it. Poppy peers over in her much smaller cage, sitting several countertops away. 

With a small huff of breath from releasing the heavy tank, Marcy straightens up. Her hands fly to her hips, shifting to press against the small of her back—she stretches out before relaxing. Before Philip can ask, she announces, “It’s for Poppy.”

He’d gathered. He doesn’t know what to say. The new tank’s at least twice as big as Poppy’s current setup. It’ll need a lot more gravel, fluorite, and a larger dock, but he’ll be able to fit more plants in it, and he wants Poppy to have as many living things around her as possible. His hand skims reverently across the top, checking the filter as he tells Marcy, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She ducks down to look at him through the glass, which only fractionally distorts her smile. He smiles back and straightens up. Following suit, she explains, “I went to the Aquarium with David today. Have you been?”

“Not yet.” And he probably won’t. He only has a general idea of what the Aquarium is. Even though he spends the vast majority of his days just sitting in the garage, staring at the computer screen and trying to manage his cravings, he feels like he doesn’t have time for actually _fun_ excursions. Besides, he hasn’t decided how he feels about twenty-first animal keeping yet, and he doesn’t want to have to confront his own trapping of Poppy. He tells himself he rescued her from a scummy pet store that wouldn’t love her right, but really, it’s more like she’s rescuing him.

Marcy elaborates, “It’s beautiful. David kept laughing about how I had to stop at every little thing, but he can’t appreciate how mesmerizing it is for people like us. There are so many things there that we don’t have in our time, and worse, so many things we didn’t even know about. Things that completely dropped off the radar and no one ever looked back on. And they’re all just... swimming around. But it was also sad, in a way, because some things were in little tanks so small that they couldn’t have been happy.” She pauses, and Philip nods in understanding. He can’t help feeling slightly envious, not just of the experience, but of her having someone to share it with; David seems to take all their wonderment so easily in stride. Marcy’s life seems so much more carefree than Philip’s, but then he reminds himself that she had her own demons. She taps the top of the new tank and finishes, “So I figured I’d get a better one for Poppy. My treat.”

Philip gives her a genuine, “Thank you. Seriously.” But inside, he feel bad for not thinking of it himself. That leads to another nagging thought he’s had. Marcy seems more in tune with the current world than him, so it seems fair to ask her. “Do you think she’s lonely? Being the only turtle around?”

Marcy glances at Poppy, lounging lazily on a small slab of rock protruding from the water. She slowly answers, “I don’t know. Our training never covered extinct animals.”

If there’s one thing Philip hates, it’s the word _extinction._ It still disturbs him how many species the human race let die away. He knows that many people in the twenty first gave up hope and would joke that humans deserved to die off, but that’s a terrible mentality, because the animals _didn’t deserve it._ And humans dragged the whole ecosystem right down with them. 

Marcy must be able to see his mood sinking, because she comes around the table to pat his arm. He tries to perk up for her. She gives him a little squeeze though his sweater and says, “Hey. It’s going to be okay. We’ll make it better.”

He doesn’t know if he believes that anymore. But people like David do exist in this time, people that _care_, so it’s possible. 

In the meantime, at least he has Poppy. He hopes Marcy can see his gratitude for that. 

With a little wave, Marcy takes her leave. She probably has much better things to do, like get dinner with David and laugh and be happy. When the door slides shut, Philip’s left all alone in the garage.

Except for Poppy. He tells her as cheerily as he can, “You’re moving up in the world,” and goes to clean out her new home.


End file.
